Trauma! Trauma! Trauma! Careflight

Emergency responders may find themselves first on scene at an incident. Our knowledge and skills in the pre hospital setting (at the incident) when performed appropriately, may make all the difference in delivering positive outcomes for patients.

The highly professional team from CareFlight delivered an 8 hr. training workshop to build greater confidence for responders, develop clinical decision making skills and practice as a team to reinforce the learning outcomes.

Incident scene assessment included gaining and maintaining situational awareness (very much like our own command and control system) while being confronted with competing priorities like airway’s or haemorrhaging. KEN’s Law air goes in and out, blood goes round and round, any variation on this is a bad thing maintained clear priorities for the participants.

Triage (to sort) is a means to quickly assess multiple causalities to determine in which order they are to be treated, this process also assists in allocation of resources at the scene. Not unlike a two vehicle collision, which do you work on first and where do you allocate equipment and resources. Categories are delayed, unsalvageable, immediate and urgent. It seemed strange to use the wording of “unsalvageable”.

Other parts of the day included airway management which was in the immediate care section; spinal injury treatment included removing a helmet from a motor cycle rider the correct way. How best to slow pelvic bleeding to gain time for the patient. The knowledge gained supported DRSABCDS and reinforced that simple measures are LIFE SAVING measures.

Members of the Lakes Entrance and Paynesville Fire brigades took the opportunity to experience the knowledge, skills and information that the professional team from CareFlight presented with overwhelming positive feedback.

The Lakes Entrance and Paynesville Fire Brigades would like to acknowledge the CareFlight team of Colin Brown (Coordinator), Mel (trauma nurse), Jasmine (trauma nurse)and David (mica paramedic) that presented on Saturday we thank you!

“It’s always a great opportunity to participate in training like this, where you have people who are dealing with trauma patients on a daily basis out in the field and can pass on some practical tips and knowledge to make our jobs as first responders easier, and hopefully improve the outcomes for the people we treat.” Geof said.

“When you go to some courses you have no idea of what the day will bring, and how, if at all you will be challenged and moulded into being a better fire fighter than the day before. This could not be closer to the mark than this day. Not only did we get to work with the Lakes Brigade Members we had a sensational day with CareFlight. A line we were challenged over was First Aid is about ABC this is about preparing your casualty for transport through secondary care in the very best possible condition to allow for a swift and timely recovery to get the casualty to medical care in a hospital or trauma centre. The day was challenging and rewarding to be concise. We applied skills gained, we were guided and prompted to try new skills. We worked in small teams. We applied command and control skills. We used our dynamic risk assessment tool. Most of all we gained confidence in ourselves and as a team that we can be effective and participants in a person’s pathway through trauma. To the CareFlight Team – thanks heaps !! This was a day we would give up again if asked to come back again. Thanks to Geof and the crew from Lakes for the invitation” said Vivienne.

CareFlight was established in 1986 and over the years has changed the way aero-medical is being performed bringing the hospital to the patient. They have completed some 25,000 missions over 25 years. Careflight runs aero-medical operations in NSW and NT. They train doctors, nurses and emergency service personal. They also provide doctors for aero-medical across NSW. Eventually delivering training right across Australia.